@NRA, We’re Really Not Falling For It

The National Rifle Association is using a Justice Department memo it obtained to argue against gun control. Seriously, a memo, not the draft of a bill, Not anything that the president or the legislature have put forward in any way, just a memo.

Actually, let me be more precise, they are using the content of a memo to fear monger because that’s all they’ve got.

A Justice Department official called the memo an unfinished review of gun violence research and said it does not represent administration policy.

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on “requiring gun registration,” and says gun buybacks would not be effective “unless massive and coupled with a ban.”

So basically, it says that there are more effective ways to curb gun violence and among these are buy backs, registration and broader bans.

This is information we all had before. And, you know, it’s true and stuff. Universal firearms registration, banning a broader group of guns, buy backs and the like would all be more effective in keeping people safe.

Yet, no one is proposing those things. Many people think they should be, but they aren’t, so the NRA’s assertions are once again, attempts to gin up hysteria and you know, money, from the people who already agree with them.

You’re slacking guys. You’re slacking. Step it up. It’ll be harder to mock you if you stop trying to be so very offensive and dishonest.